Gmail and Yahoo are implementing new requirements this year for email senders to curb the influx of unwanted messages.

While this is a boon for recipients, it poses a potential threat to ecommerce businesses, as a vital marketing channel may be at risk. To evaluate the repercussions, it’s essential to grasp the concept of “deliverability.”

Deliverability

Deliverability refers to the extent to which an email successfully reaches its intended recipients.

Optimal deliverability ensures that messages land directly in subscribers’ primary inboxes. While recipients may not necessarily open these emails, they will be aware of their receipt.

Conversely, emails with subpar deliverability are often flagged as promotional and redirected to a separate inbox or tab (e.g., the “Promotions” tab in Gmail), routed to spam folders, or potentially blocked altogether.

Regardless of the quality of content and design, emails are rendered ineffective without adequate deliverability. Even with compelling products and promotions, they remain unseen.

Now, let’s delve into the factors influencing deliverability.

Domain Consistency

A sender’s domain is prominently featured in three key locations within an email:

1. The “From” address (e.g., admin@mybusiness.com).
2. The “Reply-to” address.
3. The sending domain.

Typically, your email service provider assigns a sending domain, which serves as an alias since the actual sender is the provider, not your company. However, many providers (such as Mailchimp, Klaviyo, among others) offer clients the option to use sending domains that align with both the From and Reply-to addresses.

Maintaining consistency across these three areas with your domain is crucial for optimal email performance.

Authentication

To ensure that a recipient’s email provider can verify the authenticity of the sender and prevent impersonation, it’s essential to set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records at the sender’s domain registrar. These authentication protocols serve as a fundamental deliverability test. Without proper authentication, recipients’ email providers are more inclined to block marketing emails.

Fortunately, many email providers offer tools and guides to simplify the process of configuring SPF, DKIM, and DMARC settings, making it easier for senders to enhance their email deliverability.

Reputation

A domain that registers and immediately sends out 10,000 emails is typically considered untrustworthy. Similarly, a domain with a history of 50% of past emails marked as spam or sent to expired or invalid addresses raises red flags.

In contrast, a well-established sending domain with minimal spam complaints and consistent email engagement is likely to have a positive reputation.

The sending reputation of a domain is crucial for achieving inbox delivery. Various services offer reputation monitoring, with Google Postmaster Tools being a recommended starting point due to its free availability.

Building and maintaining a good reputation involves several key practices:

1. Only sending emails to individuals who have explicitly opted in.
2. Avoiding the purchase of email addresses.
3. Sending high-quality, relevant content to recipients.
4. Regularly removing inactive subscribers and invalid addresses from mailing lists.
5. Utilizing list cleaning services like Neverbounce or AtData to identify and remove bad addresses.

Content

The final crucial aspect of email deliverability is the content itself, which must be accurate, clean, and relevant. Sending irrelevant content can lead to annoyance and confusion among recipients, ultimately damaging sender reputation. For instance, if an apparel store sends emails about Lego sets to its subscribers, it’s likely to receive a poor reputation due to the mismatched content.

Additionally, overloading an email with excessive images and exaggerated language such as “win big,” “millions,” “lottery,” or “gold” can trigger spam filters.

It’s important to strike a balance with email content. While images can enhance the visual appeal of marketing emails, excessive use can lead to emails being clipped and difficult to read. Through testing with tools like Glockapps, it has been observed that emails with fewer images consistently achieve better deliverability results. Studies from HubSpot corroborate these findings.

Therefore, while incorporating images is recommended in marketing emails, it’s essential to avoid overdoing it and maintain a predominantly text-based approach for improved deliverability.

Delivery KPIs

Here are the key performance indicators (KPIs) for assessing email delivery effectiveness:

1. Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who open an email compared to the total number of emails delivered. Aim for at least a 20% open rate for ecommerce campaigns.
2. Click Rate: The percentage of recipients who click on a link within an email divided by the total number of emails delivered. Aim for a click rate of at least 1%.
3. Bounce Rate: The percentage of emails that are returned as undeliverable divided by the total number of emails delivered. Keep the bounce rate below 1%.
4. Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of recipients who click the unsubscribe link divided by the total number of emails delivered. Aim to keep this rate below 0.5%.
5. Spam Rate: The percentage of recipients who mark an email as spam divided by the total number of emails delivered. Aim for a spam rate of 0.05% or less to maintain deliverability and reputation.

For your ecommerce business selling downloadable music software in 2023, the KPIs for marketing and automation emails were as follows:

• Open Rate: 42%
• Click Rate: Marketing – 1.28%; Automation – 3.43%
• Bounce Rate: 0.43%
• Unsubscribe Rate: 0.27%
• Spam Rate: 0.005%

These KPIs indicate excellent email delivery performance, with high open and click rates, low bounce, unsubscribe, and spam rates. To maintain or improve these results, prioritize email deliverability by ensuring email content relevance, maintaining clean email lists, and complying with email authentication protocols.